The Mission
Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) is committed to the truth that God loves people, gave Himself for them and has given His Church supernatural power to bring individuals and nations into wholeness. God is in a good mood! Inaugurated in 1998 with 36 students, the school emphasizes that believers need to return to the ministry of signs and wonders—to minister in love, truth and the power of God. The mission of BSSM is to equip and deploy followers of Jesus Christ who passionately pursue transformation in their God-given spheres of influence. In the 2008/2009 school year, more than 900 students were trained to continue in the ministry style of Jesus: to enjoy the presence of God, say what He is saying, and do what He is doing.
The Atmosphere
BSSM is a Holy Spirit driven ministry school where students of all ages come to learn how to live in the Kingdom of God and extend it’s borders through a supernatural lifestyle. It is important to note that although many young people come to BSSM, the school is multi-generational with participants ranging from the ages of 18 to 80. One of Bethel’s core values is honor, which manifests through joining the generations and teaching every age group to value and serve one another.
The school emphasizes hands on training and experience along with academic understanding. This creates a do and teach culture where all of the students are expected to take risks to stretch their faith and grow in their understanding of God. BSSM believes that each verse of the Bible is an invitation into an experience with the Lord, therefore the students are challenged to live the Bible. This produces a class environment that often feels very much like a laboratory where disciples practice the things they are being taught while instructors coach the process and all this takes places in a setting of passionate worship.
As the year progresses and the students begin to gain confidence and experience within the safety of the classroom, they are sent on outreaches into the community. These exploits include ministry to neighborhoods, after-school programs, and street & service evangelism. When the students take their supernatural ministry into the community, it gets pretty wild and exciting! They return to class to share testimonies, give thanks and debrief, always cheering each other on as they share.
Boldness, passion and risk are center stage in Bethel’s school. These values define our atmosphere and are manifest in worship, ministry and in relationships with each other.
Student Life
The school is designed to equip students to live a supernatural lifestyle, not just minister in the gifts of the Spirit. They are encouraged to be naturally supernatural by bringing heaven to earth wherever they go. Therefore BSSM by design, does not have dorms. Instead we encourage students to live in the outreach neighborhoods and get jobs in the local area so that they can practice bringing Jesus to the market place as a part of their learning experience. Most of our students work part-time jobs while they attend school.
Though in-class hours are Monday through Thursday from 12:45 to 5:30, the school is full-time, five-days a week - minimum. The class hours are learning opportunities with the instructors but they are just a small part of the learning experience. The other hours consist of learning through homework, from an author or from the Holy Spirit as the students read the Word, attend services, serve on ministry teams, soaking & prayer times of personal devotion, living the supernatural lifestyle in an honorable way at work, and more. BSSM is not for the faint of heart or lazy, it is an extremely fast paced season of schooling, but the training is pivotal and strategic. We believe the intensity soon translates into “becoming”; things that are at first foreign and done out of duty gradually become second nature and students move from merely echoing a message to becoming a message.
The school culture is more adept to meeting God as you “do life.” One example of this is that the school has no general restriction on dating for our single people, which is so common to most ministry schools. Rather, we have chosen to teach our students how to have healthy relationships and live in purity. Of course, learning without a lot of external restrictions creates a need for a high level of discipleship, personal responsibility and accountability in the lives of our students. This is accomplished through small group interaction and a covenant community which embraces honesty, transparency and confrontation.
BSSM is not for those who are looking for a place to rehab or people who are coming out of lifestyle sins. Bethel’s school is designed to be a ministry training center where our students encounter their royal identity, learn the attributes of the Kingdom and walk in the authority and power of the King.
Academic Overview
The academic instruction at BSSM is unique because it is taught by apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers - not by professors or theologians. This gives the teaching a kind of living perspective with five-fold distinctions. BSSM has many powerful guest speakers throughout the year but the primary teaching is accomplished through our twenty-two staff members.
The students receive a great deal of historic commentary and insight into the scriptures but they are also immersed in a revelatory culture where the Holy Spirit becomes the chief instructor and tour guide. He causes His Kingdom to come alive through the pages of the Bible. BSSM students learn how to read, understand, and “do” the Bible - how to cast out demons, witness, heal the sick, prophesy, preach, pray, practice His presence and much more.
The BSSM students learn in large group sessions, revival groups of 60-70 people, small groups of 5, and on their own. There are also classes entitled Advance Ministry Training. Here, students choose the subjects they are passionate about and called to train in. These AMT's deepen their understanding and experience in a much more focused way and at a higher level in areas such as leading worship, children’s ministry, preaching, prophecy, intercession, intimacy with God, youth, and career ministry. Every week BSSM students are transformed through preaching, teaching, instruction, impartation, equipping and doing.
Reading on your own time is expected and is a large part of our curriculum. There are approximately 2400 pages of mandatory reading throughout the year. That works out to 10 pages of reading everyday of the 240 days from beginning to graduation. That’s on top of 2-3 chapters of the Word daily. So plan on reading 30 – 60 minutes a day minimum. Thankfully, it’s all amazing, transforming content.
BSSM Structure
The school is divided into two 9-month segments, September through May, and each year has a specific focus in the development of the revivalist. Graduates of these two years may apply for internships or be deployed into various opportunities.
1st year - First Year School of Ministry focuses on assimilating the core values of the Kingdom into the heart of the Believer and establishing God’s Royal identity in the mind of each student. The first year students receive the gifts of the Spirit and learn how to walk in the power of God.
Students read the entire Bible (some of it over the summer) in this 9-month program along with approximately 12 additional books. They are a part of the ministry team in our church services and serve in our conferences, classes and home groups. They do outreach ministry each week and the entire school goes on various mission trips nationally and mostly internationally. Students raise additional funds for these missions trips. The school hosts two retreats each year that are in the cost of the school in which the students have a lot of fun getting to know each other and connecting with the staff.
2nd year - Second Year students take the skills and core values they have learned in First Year and begin to develop their own ministry. They choose a revival and a revivalist from history and investigate them with a view to forging similar dynamics in their own lives. They also learn leadership principles to gain understanding on how to lead people and establish the Kingdom in every realm of society.
Second Year students have the opportunity to travel with our leadership team on ministry trips where the students are the ministry team for each trip. “Firestorm” is a ministry which is part of the school, where the students go to different churches as the primary ministry team. They demonstrate signs and wonders, train the local congregation in supernatural ministry and take them into the community to do treasure hunts (i.e. these are prophetic spontaneous encounters where Believers look for hidden treasure in the hearts of the folks of their city).
Internships - Internships provide an opportunity to experience the Kingdom culture of leadership first hand. Our program is tailored to meet both the interns calling and the ministry of the person for whom they will intern. In addition to time spent with one’s immediate leader and learning ministry by serving, it includes; individual pastoral oversight by our team, coaching, leadership training (including some sessions with our Senior Leadership team) and regular time with other interns to build relationship.
Internships generally center on the five-fold ministry, youth, children, worship, prayer, missions, etc. They are primarily available to those called to career ministry in the church, although those who intend to lead in other realms of society could potentially be considered.
As a general rule, we prefer those who have also completed Second Year for these internship positions because we believe the First and Second Year program work in tandem produce higher quality leaders.
To view pictures from the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry Graduation 2009, click here.
